February 12, 2006

Aaron Burr would be proud

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fellow hunter this weekend, making him the first vice president since Aaron Burr, that I know of, to shoot somebody while in office.

The man, Harry Whittington, is chair of the Texas Funeral Commission and was shot while hunting on the ranch of Katharine Armstrong. He's in stable condition and probably wasn't seriously injured. They were quail hunting and the shot for that isn't too big.

The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
The vice president's office did not disclose the accident until the day
after it happened.

Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch, was a member of the hunting party and witnessed the accident.

She
said Cheney, an experienced hunter, did not realize Whittington had
rejoined the group without announcing himself, which is proper protocol
among hunters.

"They had no idea he was there," Armstrong said.

"A
bird flew up, the vice president followed it through around to his
right and shot, and unfortunately, unbeknownst to anybody, Harry was
there and he got peppered pretty good with a spray of 28-gauge
pellets," Armstrong said in a telephone interview.

"He was
turning, facing the vice president, but turning to the right, and it
sprayed him across the right side of his face, his shoulder, his chest
and along the rib cage area," she said.

Armstrong said Cheney's medical team attended to Whittington before he was taken to the hospital.

This is obviously a tragedy and a very serious situation. But, there is a funny side to all of this. All of the photos or video of Cheney that are being shown have him scowling. He doesn't smile, or at least when he does smile it looks more like the Penguin launching one of his evil plans.